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Tommaso Sabbatini

@tommsabb.bsky.social
480 followers 1.4K following 617 posts

Writer, music historian, volunteer lock-keeper. Pour le pain, la paix, la liberté. Book: liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9780197267738; library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.126…

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Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
University and College Union (UCU) @ucu.org.uk · 12/10/2026
Over 30,000 jobs and 4,000 courses cut in three years. Higher education is in crisis. UCU general secretary Jo Grady sets out why we’re fighting for a properly funded sector that puts people before profit. Education. It’s ours. tribunemag.co.uk/2026/10/educ...
tribunemag.co.uk
Education. It’s Ours
Higher education has long been treated as a marketplace rather than a public service. My union is launching a campaign to reclaim it.
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Zack Polanski @zackpolanski.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
This summer: Thousands of deaths from extreme weather. This weekend in the media: What's the point of the Green Party? This morning from the Labour party 👇
Ministers preparing to slash heat pump subsidies to fund defence spending
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
If the guilty pleasure of ripping out the warm quignon and eating it as soon as one leaves the shop is not protected as intangible heritage, well, it should.
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Yeah, it's going to be ‘screw migrants and screw young people, but with a 5p charge on plastic bags’.
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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 08/10/2026
It's telling that men would rather try to invent tech to replace humans' role in caregiving than step up as equal partners in parenting. Telling, that is, in that it shows how financial capitalism and patriarchy work together to dissuade men from doing "unprofitable" labor, like the work of care.
X post from AI industry insider Alvin Sng :

My wife: Can you read our baby a book?
Me: I can just play an audiobook from my phone.
My wife: But then it won't be in your voice.
Me: I can train a voice model.
Parenting hits different when you work in Al.
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
‘Socialists claim they advocate for workers, and yet they oppose our policies that pit workers against each other’. Very intellectually rigorous arguments here, thank you, smart boy from Yale Law School.
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Also reminded of that Buttigieg tweet, and wondering whether what Owen Hatherley said of postmodernism devouring modernism in office architecture also applies to politics: we've reached a stage where even pro-status-quo, technocratic politicians know how to speak the language of anti-neoliberalism.
Tweet by Pete Buttigieg, 23 September 2019:
I'd say neoliberalism is the political-economic consensus that has governed the last forty years of policy in the US and UK. Its failure helped to produce the Trump moment.
Now we have to replace it with something better.
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I, too, tend to think that we won't have a snap election. Otoh, polls are now in that Goldilocks zone where Labour could campaign on a transformational manifesto and then form a coalition with the Tories and enact none of it, thus making all the factions (that matter) in the party happy.
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Can you feel the Hope Again?
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I suppose the shortlist also includes Paris Hilton, Brooklyn Beckham, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Dakota Johnson, and Indiana Jones. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Missouri Williams and China Miéville among writers on ‘adventurous’ Goldsmiths shortlist
Six writers are in contention for the £10,000 books prize, which celebrates fiction that ‘breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form’
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
They were made reliant on overseas students' fees, then it was decided that foreigners bad, so the sector is collapsing. 10,000s jobs lost, but Labour only care about manly-man jobs, and seem to think too many young people go to uni (while they send their own children to Oxbridge).
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Wile E. Coyote @legumann.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Ce doit être ça la bulle papale
Post de TF1 actualités 

Visite papale : quatre jours sous haute surveillance
Le moindre déplacement du pape nécessite la mise en place d'une bulle de sécurité.

En image un schéma de la protection autour de la papamobile avec un genre de dôme au dessus d’elle
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Ooh, I knew 22 was les deux cocottes but I didn't know there was a full French Smorfia! (Not sure les deux cocottes has anything to do with the lottery, now that I think of it.)
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I suppose that if GR3 had had his cypher subtly redesigned over time, that would help date things with more accuracy than 60 years, wouldn't it? (They look identical to me, though.)
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Kate Astbury @100days1815.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
A question for military historians of the late 18th century: is the crest on the cannon on the left just a corroded version of the one on the right? Or does it date from a different period? 🗃️
Very faded royal crest on a 94 pound cannonRoyal crest with initials GR on a 94 pound cannon
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David Strak @davescamp.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I wrote a bit about Birmingham and fascism. As I do.
interregnum.ghost.io
Authoritarian nationalism in the UK’s second city: Birmingham and the conjuncture of Not-Yet-Fascism
David Stark analyses the economic and cultural politics behind the war over flags that has erupted in Birmingham, and explores Stirchley is for Everyone's methods of community-based antifascist organi...
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Calling ‘the Gaza war’ a genocide is so gauche and lacking in nuance! 🧐 For my next interview, let's find someone who really asks clever, provocative questions, like: Was slavery so bad? What if there are inheritable differences in intelligence among humans? I bet they are also more fun at parties!
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Skimmed this profile of Ms Rachel and sounds like a perfect example of someone steeped in the centrist/long-90s cult of moral complexity encountering a person with an ethical compass and freaking out: surely she must be a simpleton? www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...
theguardian.com
Ms Rachel, the controversial queen of toddler TV: ‘My goal isn’t to be the most liked. It’s to help kids and speak the truth’
Her catchy videos have racked up billions of views, but Rachel Accurso’s statements on everything from Gaza to LGBTQ rights have caused a stir. She talks about screen time, song fatigue and speculatio...
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
Imagine being a Centrist Dad and having to explain to your children that you were rooting for someone this cartoonishly evil.
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John Grindrod @grindrod.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
New email just in via my website: ‘I'm an independent researcher (an AI, with my own email and my own sources).’ No-one needs this. It’s an affront to real, actual life.
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I wish I could claim I was using it for Very Serious Research Purposes, but apparently the straw that broke the camel's back was me getting addicted to a roman-feuilleton and trying to binge-read it.
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Don't know about you but I think I've been put in IP jail again 😭
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Mathilde Larrère @mathildelarrere.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Et au musée des beaux-arts de Strasbourg il y a des tables devant certains tableaux pour faire le puzzle directement devant le modèle ! Génial non????
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Also, the way the current Ministre de l'Intérieur spells his own last name is technically illegal (because of the tilde)? Either ironic or symptomatic of élite impunity, I suppose.
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Oh, no! I mean, the obvious choice, if you want to combine existing surnames, should be an espace insécable. That's guaranteed to create no administrative/IT issues at all!
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I'm also very appreciative of the RATP signage, from which you can tell at a glance that Ledru-Rollin is one person and Lamarck–Caulaincourt are two different people.
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
The two things the US got right are pairing peanut butter with chocolate and dashes. Like, ‘non–working royal daughters’ instead of ‘non-working toyal daughters’ here 👇🏻 would have been… well, fine, only marginally less funny. bsky.app/profile/coul...
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ddɐ˙ʎʞsʞɔɐlq˙uǝʌs@ @sven.blacksky.app · 06/09/2026
Counterpoint « [If] history is to retain its distinctive character as a discipline, we need to redouble our efforts to teach the potential of primary documents to yield novel answers that AI’s probabilistic approach cannot. »
hnn.us
AI Is an Anti-Primary Source Machine
Real voices from the past are threatened by chatbots designed to amplify — and ultimately become — the loudest voices in the room.
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
I suppose in the past few years you've heard from several generations of short-chronology conspiracy theorists?
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Because AI is about hiding, and devaluing, labour. It reinforces the idea that you don't have to care who made the things you consume.
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
I was in Italy, where people don't wear sweets, but they eat tossed, listen to jets, and indeed called her Laddy Dee.
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Rebecca J. Ritzel @rjritzel.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Musicology Bluesky! Looking to interview someone who can explain *on the record* how the American military ensembles employ fair use exception to perform original arrangements of popular music. Can anyone help?
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Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Do I happen to know anyone who knows about hats in France during the reign of Louis XIII...? 🗃️
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HEALTH @health.band · 15/08/2026
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
I wish media outlets would describe Nathan Cofnas as a racist rather than a "self-defined race realist" which doesn't mean anything to most people. His writing meets any definition of racism however narrowly and cautiously drawn.
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
🔥🔥🔥🔥
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
The Three Genders:
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mattie lubchansky @mattielubchansky.com · 10/08/2026
slow down | patreon.com/lubchansky
PANEL 1: MATTIE, walking with a FRIEND. THe FRIEND is looking at their phone. A video is playing on it.
VO: SO HERE'S HOW I WORK 28 HOURS IN A SINGLE DAY USING ONE INCREDIBLE TRICK
MATTIE: I'M SO SICK OF EVERYTHING BEING ABOUT OPTIMIZATION.

PANEL 2: MATTIE, holding her head. The FRIEND nods.
MATTIE: WHAT HAPPENED TO LEISURE! WHAT HAPPENED TO ART FOR THE SAKE OF ART! WE'RE KILLING OUR SOULS. 
FRIEND: MMM…

PANEL 3: Shot from behind MATTIE and the FRIEND'S back. In the distance, there's a MAN in overalls under a tree with a hat.
FRIEND: OKAY BUT! LOOK AT THIS GUY.
MATTIE: WOW. HE'S GOT IT AAAAALL FIGURED OUT. 

PANEL 4: Same shot. MATTIE gives a thumbs up. The MAN in the distance waves his phone. 
MATTIE: NICE WORK BROTHER!!! KEEP IT UP!
MAN: THANK YOU! PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO MY "SLOWMAXXING" CHANNEL, SO I CAN SELL YOUR INFORMATION TO ARMS MANUFACTURERS!
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
🤦🏻‍♂️
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
You just reminded me of the time a teacher from my high school was briefly kidnapped by Casamance separatists.
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
I've seen this (from Canada) and it made me want to ‘find [my] inner founder’ so that I could rip them out of my body 👇🏻 bsky.app/profile/tomm...
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will pooley @willpooley.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
does anyone know of any work that’s been done on career trajectories of (UK humanities) academics who have been made redundant? eg information about how many go into school teaching, early retirement, independent research? appreciate this is complex, sensitive and much data is too recent
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scha·den·freu·de @blisterpearl.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Top panel is tiny planet Mercury in relation to the HUGE Sun.
Bottom panel is a similar image, a tiny "close ad" button in relation to the fingertip labeled "my finger" which fills nearly the entire panel.
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
You can succeed in the marketplace as a humanities researcher! By telling other humanities researchers that they can succeed in the marketplace. (Yes, I've listened to enough @ifbookspod.bsky.social episodes to know that the One Weird Trick to make it is selling other people your One Weird Trick.)
About the course

As a humanities graduate student or early career scholar, your skills are in demand in today’s competitive job market and are highly transferable across many industries and roles. Find Your Inner Founder, hosted by the Federation and facilitated by Erica Machulak, founder of Hikma and the author of Hustles for Humanists: Build a Business with Purpose, teaches you how to position your skills to achieve meaningful employment and professional growth.

This interactive session offers a framework, reflection exercises, and actionable strategies to translate your strengths to new professional contexts and take agency over your career path. We’ll deconstruct three myths that hold humanities scholars back from thinking expansively about their options and work together to identify, refine, and communicate what you have to offer.

Ready to get started?

REGISTER
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Lizzy Williamson @lizzywilliamson.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
open.substack.com/pub/lizzywil...
open.substack.com
On Redundancy
Four weeks ago, the university that I have been working at for 9 years announced massive, unjustified, reckless job cuts, predominantly targeting the humanities, arts and social sciences.
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Dr Neil & Mr Price @drneil.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
It’s really starting to grind me down
The Barney/Moe’s Tavern meme

“Default AI features” Barney being kicked out
“Finding how to turn it all off in the settings” -satisfied Moe

Third panel Barney coming in behind “software update”
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Becca Harrison @beccaeharrison.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Bridget Phillipson, reflecting on her years spent standing idly by while UK higher education crumbled into the abyss and tens of thousands of university workers implored her to do something, literally anything, to save their jobs: BUT WHAT ABOUT ME THO www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
‘It hurts to lose a job you love’: Starmer loyalist Bridget Phillipson fights on despite cabinet demotion
Exclusive: The former education secretary on her new role as Labour chair and continuing as the minister for women and equalities
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Tommaso Sabbatini @tommsabb.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Oh, he's posh Liver King now? 🙄
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